Wednesday, March 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Clark County School District Police are asking the School Board to add six positions to the force to keep up with campus crime.
School Board members may vote Thursday on a proposal to add one investigator, one sergeant and four officers at an estimated cost of $263,591, which includes benefits. Additional security equipment also is being requested.
One of the byproducts of growth is an increase in vandalism to school property.
In the funding request to the School Board, Sidney Franklin, assistant superintendent for the alternative education division who oversees campus police, wrote that schools are "easy targets" for criminals.
"The lack of adequate police officers on swing and grave shifts makes it impossible to simply patrol for safety," Franklin wrote. "The lack of adequate and complete security systems makes it almost impossible to provide the necessary deterrent and apprehension of criminals in the act of a burglary."
In addition to schools being burglarized, students increasingly are being caught with guns and knives on campus. At the last School Board meeting, school police displayed a cache of weapons confiscated from students at schools.
Two weeks ago, the School Board voted to add four positions to the school police force at a cost of $147,000.
The second proposed expansion of the force will be decided at the School Board's meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Education Center, 2832 E. Flamingo Road.
At 4:30 p.m., the School Board will conduct a special meeting to decide zoning for West, Swainston and O'Callaghan middle schools and change the Prime 6 option schools to provide relief from overcrowding at Booker and McCall elementaries and Gilbert magnet school.
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